


Processing

by perniciousLizard



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, M/M, Robot Newton Geiszler, Robot/Human Relationships, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4417190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perniciousLizard/pseuds/perniciousLizard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt’s kept his secret safe for ages, but years without maintenance are taking their toll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Processing

**Author's Note:**

> Content Note: Newt’s mechanical breakdown includes sudden vision loss, hearing loss, and time lapses.

His artificial skin didn't itch or shed. He didn't have sweat glands, and his hair never got any longer than it was. Newt was sure that he would have noticed these things in another person, if he had been human, but it had been fifteen years since he started his fake-human life, and no one ever had.

That was great, until he started to fall apart.

He wasn't meant to go for so long without maintenance. He opened up his back panel, plugged himself into a computer, and read and reread the error messages that had accumulated. How was he supposed to fix this, learn how to fix this, when he had so much more important work to do? He closed himself up and decided to ignore the problem until he couldn'd avoid it.

\--

"Newton!"

There was a hand on his shoulder.

"Hermann?" He started to blink again. His internal timeclock told him that he had been staring into space for ten minutes. He twitched, violently, and pushed Hermann's hand off with his kaiju-gore coated glove.

That distracted him. "Did you neutralize this?" Hermann asked, looking at the blue smear on his hand.

He was tempted to say "no" and make Hermann have to run off to the chemical shower. That might be a little too much of a shit move when the world was depending on their work. "Yeah, don't freak out." He was having trouble processing his own voice.

Hermann made a face and wiped his hand on the back of Newt's shirt. "Are you ill? I thought you had music on, but where are your ear buds? Have you been sleeping?"

It took him too long to process what Hermann was saying, too. "Yeah, I'm--I don't know, the flu or something.  _It's_ the flu or something. Probably. Just keep zoning out." He shook his head, trying to clear it.

"Well, then, don't  _work,_ you idiot," Hermann snapped. "You're a walking biohazard, normally, but you don't usually wipe poison on people." He went over to the sink and started rinsing his hand.

"Yeah, you should probably keep your hand under there for like, ten minutes, minimally, sorry," Newt said. "It's neutralized, but better safe than sorry. After that, coat it in the, uh, red container. Stuff in the red container, right there. Let that sit a minute and rinse." He realized he hadn't blinked since Hermann had wiped his hand on him. He looked down at the mass of kaiju tissue he had been dissecting. He had completely fucked it up, probably right before he zoned out.

Hermann vigorously rubbed his hands under the water. "If you refuse to leave, I am contacting someone and you will be forcibly removed from the lab."

"Oh,  _come on_ , Hermann. Lighten up. Why are you even here?" Hermann and his department were located on the other side of the building.

"There's no point discussing it with you until you get some sleep or get over whatever this illness is," Hermann decided.

"Is this about the, uh..." he closed his eyes, hoping that cutting off his vision for a second would make his mouth work. "...the, uh, thing." He gestured, wildly. "You know. The joint meeting! That's not for...sixty-six hours, thirteen minutes."

"That's no reason to--" Hermann broke off. "No, never mind. Like I already said, and like I am apparently going to have to keep repeating until you get it through your  _thick skull,_ I will discuss it with you  _later_ ."

Newt realized that he had given way too precise an amount of time until the meeting, but Hermann hadn't noticed. Good ol' math nerd Hermann. He probably thought it was weird everyone didn't know exactly how many minutes there were until the next time they met with Stacker Pentecost.

He blanked out again, but this time it was only for a few seconds. Hermann didn't seem to notice.

Newt put the tissue sample away. He was going to have to open himself up and mess with his programming again, and spend the next day pretending he was sick.

By the time he was done cleaning up, Hermann was done by the sink. He walked back over to Newt and grasped his bare forearm. "Are you done? You are leaving, Newton. It was not an idle threat when I said I would contact medical and have them come get you." He looked down at Newt's arm and frowned.

Newt's sensors sluggishly informed him that Hermann's hand was ice cold, and he should probably have reacted to that by now. "Man, you didn't have to wash your hands in icewater," he whined.

"There is something very wrong with you," Hermann said. He narrowed his eyes and looked into Newt's eyes, searching for something. "And I'm not just speaking of your personality or the flaws in your research," he muttered. Louder, he continued, "You're going to see a doctor."

"That's not actually what's going to happen," Newt explained. He slammed the storage freezer shut and locked it. "I'm going to bed to sleep and you're going back to your coffin and if I still feel like garbage in the morning, then maybe I'll go." Even if he felt like he was dying, he wasn't going to see a doctor.

Hermann shook his head, clearly disapproving, but he said, "Well, you are,  _in theory_ , an adult, so you will make your own terrible decisions."

They left the lab together, Hermann seeming to hang back to make sure Newt was actually going to leave.

\--

When Newt got back to his room, he yanked his shirt off his head. He started swearing, letting loose a long string of expletives, until he got open his back panel and hooked himself up to the computer that let him actually see what was going wrong.

He blanked out, again, this time for half an hour. When he jerked back to himself, he had trouble properly focusing on the screen.

He looked over at the enormous poster of Godzilla over his bed. He knew what it was, what it was supposed to be, but it just looked like stripes of meaningless colors. He whacked himself on the head, and for a second it refocused into a static-covered but understandable approximation of what it actually looked like. "I don't think I can fix this," he told the poster. "I don't think-- _shit._ " He banged his head against his desk. It didn't hurt, and it didn't fix anything.

He unplugged himself, closed his panel, and went to lay on his bed. He'd had a good run. The overhead light kept flickering in and out of existence. At least it looked kind of cool. He felt around until he found his phone. He had it set up to listen to voice commands, but he wasn't sure who to call. Who could actually fix him? He wasn't calling the guy who made him, that was for sure.

There was...oh, god, there was  _Hermann._ No, he really didn't want to do that. Maybe...Choi or Pentecost? They were both kind of tools, but Pentecost could maybe figure out where to send him to get fixed up.

He would send him to Hermann. They would both send him to Hermann.

Newt groaned. His phone asked him to repeat his request.

No, he couldn't trust Hermann, could he? He would probably tell someone, right? Someone like Stacker, who he had already decided would probably deal with it. He definitely couldn't trust any of Hermann's little math underlings. At least Hermann wouldn't go public with it.

He replayed his mental recording of Hermann calling his name, when he had zoned out in the lab. Maybe it wouldn't go as badly as he was imagining.

He told his phone to call Hermann. 

It took three tries for it to register. He wasn't sure what was going on with his voice, but between his trouble with the phone and how quickly Hermann hauled ass to his door despite his lack of explanation, he wasn't sounding 100%.

Newt got up and aimed himself towards his locked door. Hermann was slamming on it with the end of his cane, probably waking up half the hall.

"Give me ten seconds, Hermann!" he yelled, leaning against the inside of his door. Could he do this? Was he actually going to do this?

He unlatched the door and went back over to sit on his bed. Hermann was a shadow in the blazing square of light that was the open door, and he got progressively bigger as he walked over.

"Close the door," Newt said.

Hermann paused, and for a second Newt thought he was going to argue, but he just silently turned and closed the door behind him.

"Thanks." How did you even start a conversation like this?

Hermann walked over, his uneven gait still recognizable with Newt's limited vision. He grabbed Newt's chin, hard, and tipped his head up. "Give me one reason why I am not going to call the doctor in here, right this instant. What is this? A seizure? I should have called before I came here."

Newt laughed. "They can't do anything. That's my one reason, but it's pretty good, right? It's not a seizure, Hermann. I'm breaking down."

"So I should call the...psychologist?" he asked. "You are acting like you know what is happening to you. So  _tell me,_ you stubborn fool. _"_ He turned Newt's head to the side, still examining him.

"That's--you know, I can actually see why you would guess that, based on what I said, but no, she'd help as much as the doctor would. God. Okay, don't flip out, Hermann."

"When have I ever done that?" he scoffed.

"Like, you do that--you do that--you do that all the time?" Choking out words was getting more difficult.

"I do not."

"Ha!" His voice sounded strange, even to him. "Hermann, you are going to flip out, but I'm just--I'm just going to show you."

He took a deep, useless breath and turned so Hermann could see his back.

"I don't see what--"

Newt opened up his panel, figuring that would shut him up.

" _What on earth?!"_

"Well, that didn't shut you up, but it was kind of satisfying," Newt said.

Hermann didn't say anything, for a very long minute.

"Okay, so I'm having visual processing issues, so if you don't say anyth-thing--I don't have any idea what you're thinking," Newt finally said. "Sorry about the 'shut you up' comment, if that's why--"

"So this is why you called me, instead of a physician," Hermann just started talking, like Newt hadn't been in the middle of a sentence.. He spoke very slowly.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"I'm not...I'm not entirely sure what is going on." Hermann sank down onto the bed next to Newt. There was a light thunk as his cane slid out of his hand and onto the floor.

"I told you not to flip out," Newt reminded. He tried to say something else, but a stuttering noise was all that came out. He knocked his palm against his head. "Okay! You have to take the computer right there and plug it into my port. This wasn't designed in a way that lets me just fix this internally."

"What exactly is this? Some...medical aid?" he asked, his voice weak.

"Nope. Good guess, though. You have to use my computer, right over there. I can't set up another one to work, right now." He just wanted to get Hermann to fix enough so that he could deal with Hermann freaking out.

He felt Hermann shifting, on the bed, and get up. There was a long moment where he wasn't sure that Hermann was going to help him. If he left, Newt wasn't going to be able to do anything about that.

Relief flooded through him when Hermann sat back down. He felt a brief shock as Hermann plugged the computer into his back.

"What  _is_ this?" Hermann asked, quiet. "This is impossible."

"Completely impossible," Newt said. "No evidence for it, whatsoever. It's staring you in the face, but sure, impossible."

"Shut up, Newton. Unless you are going to explain this."

"You should sort of recognize it," Newt said, helpfully. "Like, it's not too different than the jaegers, right?"

"Yes, but--Newton, stop being so  _coy_ and tell me what is going on."

Newt shrugged. "It's not that complicated, man. I'm a robot. Okay, android, I guess, but robot's fine. It sounds a lot cooler."

" _How is that not complicated?"_ Hermann hissed. "Newton, I would think this was a joke if I was not seeing this with my own eyes."

"I wish I could be seeing things with my own eyes, except I'm about to completely lose the ability to do so, so if you're actually going to help me, would you get on with--get on with--on with--" He just stopped, giving up.

Hermann sounded tired. "Newton, if you were the one who was trying to fix this, you made a real mess of it. You should have contacted someone competent when you first noticed the problem."

"You can berate me later, just  _fix it,"_ Newt said.

"Like I can just...push some buttons and understand this. Be quiet and let me work."

Hermann only said a few words, and all of them to himself, under his breath, over the next few hours. Newt lay on his stomach, listening to Hermann breathe. Occasionally, the sound would distort and he would feel a brief flutter of panic before it settled back to normal.

"All right," Hermann said, well past three in the morning. "This should do it."

Newt waited, but nothing happened, immediately. "W-w-well?"

"Just a  _minute,_ " Hermann said. His voice was tight. "I have never done this before, but, it  _should_ put a stop to the massive cascading errors that you've been experiencing."

There was another long pause where nothing happened. "Hermann?"

Hermann tapped at the keyboard and Newt blanked out.

When he came to, his internal clock told him that two hours had passed. He groaned and fumbled for his panel, but it was already shut, so he rolled onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. The light stayed steady and undistorted.

"You're awake?"

Hermann was still here. Great.

"You were out longer than I predicted."

Newt sat up. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. "Everything seems like it's working okay."

Hermann was sitting over at his desk, Newt's laptop in front of him. He had obviously been snooping through it, while Newt was out. "I have no idea if that will continue." He took off his reading glasses and looked Newt over. He was angry, his rage barely contained, but Newt had no idea why.

"Thanks, dude," he tried. "If my artificial skin started degrading, I could fix that in like ten seconds, but this really isn't my area." He glanced at the door. "You aren't going to tell anyone, right?" He winced. Of course he was.

"Why is it a secret?" Hermann asked. "Does the Marshal know? I feel like I should have been informed."

"No, it's just you," Newt said. Hermann relaxed, a tiny bit. "I think he knows that my documentation is faked, but at this point he doesn't care who works for him, so long as they can help stop the kaiju."

"I'm sure he would care about  _this_ ."

"Maybe, but please don't tell him," Newt said.

Hermann stood up and made his way over to Newt. "I don't understand why."

Newt hopped up. He felt steadier on his feet than he had in weeks. "Look, I just don't want it to get back to the guy who made me that I'm still around, all right?" He put his arm around Hermann's shoulders. "There's no reason to tell anyone, Hermann, I promise. Honestly, I'm out of date, by this point, and any tech I have that is better than what you have is useless for the jaegers."

"You said, 'it shouldn't be that different than the jaegers.' Before."

"I don't have any proof of this, but I think whoever you adapted your original code from was the same person who made the prototype for--" he gestured to himself. "Well, the ones who came before me."

"Why are you hiding from your programmer?" he asked. He was examining Newt's hand, dangling off his shoulder.

"Dude was kind of a dick. Look, I don't want to get into it."

Hermann grasped at Newt's hand, examining his fingers. He moved one, like he was trying to figure out how it worked. "There are a number of members of my family who are involved in related disciplines. Are any of them..." he trailed off.

"Your dad didn't program me, Hermann, I promise," Newt said. "Or anyone related to you. Probably. I mean, you could get out the family tree and we could go back a few generations and maybe we could find a link. I wouldn't be shocked if your dad had some idea, since I'm not like the only one out there, but I wouldn't be shocked if he didn't, either."

"This is indistinguishable from a normal hand," Hermann said, amazed. He shrugged Newt's arm off his shoulders and turned to face him. "How?"

Newt held his hands up. "Okay, prepare to be impressed with me. Because the articulation came from my original engineer, but the lifelike human skin? That was all me. I don't sweat yet, and I can't figure out an efficient way to make it look like I bleed when I get cut, and with the kaiju I don't have time to deal with it, but it's still impressive, right? You should have seen the crap I had to wear before I made my own, Hermann, it was embarrassing. Same with the eyes and hair."

"It's actually..." Hermann slumped his shoulders. "It's actually very impressive, Newton. I have to say that, since I had no idea you weren't--well, why would I have any idea? As far as I knew, we were decades away from human-like artificial intelligence. I would assume anything else before I guessed  _this_ ."

"Still, impressive. You admit it."

"Fine. What is  _not_ impressive is the mess you made of your own programming trying to fix what was probably a minor error, at the start. I don't think I fixed everything, honestly."

"Do you think you  _can_ , though?" Newt asked. "Like, if you're not going to tell on me, that would actually be a huge help because programming is incredibly boring. Since you've admitted I'm amazing, I can admit that I kind of suck at fixing myself. Hardware over software, any day." He wiggled his fingers. "You aren't telling on me, right?"

"It sounds like a private matter," Hermann said. "I don't think I should involve myself by spreading your business around, without reason."

"So..." Newt blinked a few times, rapidly. "That's 'I won't tell Stacker,' right?"

"Yes, as I just said," Hermann said. "I--"

Newt grabbed Hermann's face and pulled him down, kissing him square on the mouth. Hermann made an alarmed noise in the back of his throat and Newt let him go.

"Thanks, dude!" The sense of relief was overwhelming. He grabbed Hermann's arm when he looked like he was going to tip over.

Hermann closed his eyes. "Why is  _wrong_ with you, really?"

Newt grinned. "That's what you're agreeing to find out for me, right?"

"I can keep your vision from failing again," Hermann said, considering. He looked at Newt, again, his interest in the subject overwhelming his embarrassment. "And, given enough time, I can find the original error and fix it. As for what's  _wrong_ with you? I believe that's well outside my interest to correct."

"Was that...was that a compliment?" Newt said. "Hermann, I was like an hour away from completely losing auditory processing, and you're pulling this? Outside your  _interest?"_ He snorted and lightly whacked Hermann on the arm. "You're into the robot thing, aren't you? Oh my god, I'm right, aren't I? I was going to make a joke, but it is completely true!"

"Newton!"

Newt was pretty sure he was about to get verbally torn into.

"You are an android, Newton, not just a  _robot_ ."

 


End file.
